Oh Little Adelaide
May 17, 2020.
The last night I put Addie to bed before our long 15 month journey with strabismus.
The Monday morning after Addie turned 6, she woke up and her eyes were crossed. A million thoughts swirled in my brain as we tried to figure out what in the world caused this. Did she hit her head? Was she acting silly? Was this a result of too much screen time? What was going on?
At the same time that we decided to go to Texas, I made an appointment with our ophthalmologist so I could get my eyes checked. We simply tacked Addie on to my appointment. Maybe she just needed glasses? After all, Evan and I both wear glasses.
Nope. Addie had 20/20 vision in both eyes. It was an alignment issue, requiring a specialist, Dr. Stager Jr. We got in fairly quickly… but then we were told that we needed to wait 6-8 weeks to see if it would either resolve itself or we would need surgery… All the while we’ve been asking the Lord for a solution.
Our prayer and faith was always that she would be 100% restored. 100% healed.
Before we knew it, we’d be hurling back to Texas but not before we packed a huge house worth of things in a U-Haul. (There’s quite a bit missing here, just know that listening to the Lord is good, but so hard sometimes.)
Then it was Thanksgiving… then it was Christmas… the new semester began with gusto and also began my calling into a local doctor. I never got a hold of anyone at their office. No matter what I did… No one would call me back. Finally I put that call back into Dr. Stager Jr’s office and we landed an appointment for July 7. Whew. Okay… that was a long time from then, but we could make it work. And then came the headaches. The ones we wish we could’ve taken away. They were occurring pretty often so I called the doctor again just to see if there was anything I could do to make this stop. So April 28th, I left a voicemail and I was hopeful they would call me back soon.
That weekend the Circuit Riders came to town for the Weekend of Worship and we went to the last night of worship outside at New Hope Church.
During one of the prayer moments, Lindy called out for healing and my Addie raised her hand.
One of our dear friends, Brenton, saw her hand raised and went to her and started praying along with Eli and another precious friend of the kids, Prophet. Soon she was surrounded by us, all praying for her. One of the Circuit Riders prayed and prophesied that Jesus was going give us a solution to this issue very soon. Still we were believing for 100%. Complete. Full. Total. Everything that Jesus paid for.
Sure enough the next morning, May 3, at 7:30, we got a call from the doctor. There had been a cancellation and we could get in that very next day. Of course we took that opportunity right then and there. Addie got in to see the surgeon and we were off to the races. Right after that appointment she broke her arm and that slowed things down but didn’t complicated them. Her elbow was quickly healed (another miracle ‘cause kids bones heal so stinking fast) and then we were off to do an MRI on her head.
Once those results came back, everything was totally fine, we got the call within a week - your pre-op appointment is scheduled for August 19 and your surgery will be the following day. The pre-op appointment lasted 15 minutes. A quick vision check. Measurements for where her eyes were tracking and a photo to commemorate her “before”.
Bright and early Friday morning, we went to the eye surgery center. That part was honestly the hardest part. Addie wouldn’t take her “liquid courage” medicine and it resulted in me, my sister Abby, and a precious pedi nurse holding her down to get some in there. (This actually has a funny story attached to it. Ask me, if you ever wanna know.) It finally calmed her down and off she went with Dr. Moore, the anesthesiologist, for a princess parade to the operating room.
Abby and I went to sit down and not even 30 minutes later, we were done. Dr. Stager, Jr. came back and said he was all done. 14,001 times he’d performed this surgery and Addie’s was an immense success. Evan quickly made his way upstairs and we were whisked back to recovery to try to get our sweet girl to calm down. (Side note: When they say your child will be “a little disoriented”, ignore that. Our little Adelaide had the strength of a full grown adult and no one will tell me any different.) Once we got her settled down, had some water and a popsicle, we went down to the car. We also stopped for Chick Fil A because what better meal can you ask for after a surgery?! We settled into my in-laws house to recover over the weekend and boy did we rest. All of us. Because after this long year of waiting, we were finally finished.
Our follow up appointment was just yesterday. We finally heard the words that we’ve been praying for for 15 long months -
